HC Deb 18 July 1978 vol 954 cc248-50
6. Mr. Ioan Evans

asked the Secretary of State for Education and Science what proportion of children is currently being educated in comprehensive schools.

Mrs. Shirley Williams

In January 1977 about 80 per cent. of pupils attended maintained comprehensive schools in England and Wales. I regret that provisional figures are not yet available for 1978.

Mr. Evans

I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Government on encouraging the development of comprehensive education. Will my right hon. Friend continue the policy of giving all our children the opportunity to develop their abilities and aptitudes to the utmost, and reject completely the schemes now coming forward from the Opposition, such as the development of voucher schemes, or Green Shield stamp schemes, which would give opportunities to certain children and deny them to the vast majority?

Mrs. Williams

Yes. What encourages me a great deal is that as the process of change settles down and more comprehensive schools have experience of working with groups of all abilities, so the standards in our schools continually improve. I believe that this will be very helpful to us in the future.

Mr. Peter Bottomley

In reply to that last question, the right hon. Lady suggested that at the moment some schools are not able to cope with all types of children. May I refer her back to her rather belligerent argument in reply to my supplementary question on Question No. 2 and ask whether she is satisfied that some parents are getting the sort of school that they believe is appropriate for their child because they have encouraged their child to work hard—for example, a top ability child? The question I am putting is not a partisan one but a straightforward question about which most parents are concerned.

Mrs. Williams

I take the hon. Gentleman's point in the spirit in which he makes it. The inspectors have looked very carefully at the whole question of the education of the gifted child and have made certain quite precise recommendations on that matter, as they have in the case of the child who needs remedial education. We are persuaded that where schools have viable sixth forms it is possible to provide the kind of education that will take a child up to university education, and beyond, within a comprehensive system.

Mr. Heffer

Is my right hon. Friend aware that it is precisely the future of sixth forms in Liverpool about which parents and teachers are most concerned because of the present proposals of the Liberal-Tory coalition in Liverpool? If those proposals were carried through, they would greatly damage the concept of sixth forms, particularly in the northern part of Liverpool, such as Walton and elsewhere. In regard to the closure of the Paddington comprehensive school, which is the only all-purpose comprehensive school in the city, what representation has my right hon. Friend had, apart from that which I have given to her, and what is her attitude to this matter?

Mrs. Williams

My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has, I understand, seen a deputation on some of the matters which have been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer). We are aware that there is concern in the area. We are very anxious to make sure that in Liverpool, as elsewhere, there is an opportunity for youngsters to go to sixth forms. In some cases that means that there will have to be a sixth form of sufficient size to make that possible.

Mr. Whitney

When the Secretary of State considers the possibility of a future extension of the comprehensive system throughout the country, will she be prepared to consider, without the benefit of political dogma, the mounting evidence of the low performance of comprehensive schools, as was given earlier this year, for example, by the results of the Institute of Mathematics tests? They showed very clearly that the schools in Buckinghamshire, which are secondary modern schools without "the benefit of comprehensivisation", are far better both in performance and in terms of attendance than the other schools. Will the right hon. Lady take account of this in her future policy towards comprehensivisation?

Mrs. Williams

The hon. Gentleman raises a very large point and I shall try to deal with it briefly. There are variations in the standards achieved by children according, to some extent, to the catchment area of the school, and no one would deny that. An inner city school will find it more difficult to achieve high academic standards than one in leafy Buckinghamshire. We have never quarrelled with that. If the hon. Gentleman will make fair comparisons, I would draw his attention to the comparative studies, which are the only ones I know of, made in Sussex, Leicestershire and Sheffield, all of which indicate that a settled comprehensive system—I bet that the hon. Gentleman has seen none of them; he simply shakes his head—has produced results at least as good as, and in many cases better than, the selective system which preceded it.